An Excerpt From...

Daddy Devastating by
Delores Fossen

The five men in the back of an unmarked van across the park from the Valtrian Royal Palace maintained radio silence. They were crowded by a wall of instruments, ignoring the dead body at their feet, watching the feed from a button camera that panned one checkpoint after another as its wearer passed through them.

Then the gilded, magnificent reception room of the palace came on the screen at last, looking exactly like the postcards vendors sold all over the city.

"Boss's in. We're good to go," the oldest of the men said, then clapped the rookie on the shoulder. "We'll be in an' out before they know what hit 'em."

The mood in the air was tense but optimistic as they checked their weapons.

"Anyone but her." Prince Istvan nestled the stash of two-hundred-year-old documents back into their leather pouch, then a ziplock bag and a protective box, careful not to damage the brittle paper. He shoved the copy he was making by hand into the inside pocket of his jacket. Every time he began work on the Maltmore diary, someone or something interrupted him. His office, located deep inside the palace, was supposed to be his sanctuary. He resented this latest intrusion, even if by his own brother.

Janos lifted a one-of-a-kind, eleventh-century medicine vial and turned it over, tapping the bottom with his fingernail while eyeing the rest of the curiosities on the desk. "She's already here. How was Brazil?"

"Loud." Istvan grabbed the artifact with his white-gloved hands and set it back on its special stand. He'd trained the staff to respect his wishes and keep their hands to themselves. But nothing was sacred to his brothers, who felt free to waltz in and rifle through centuries-old treasures as they used to ransack through each other's toy chests three decades back.

Janos--economist, two-time golf champion and superb yachtsman--was moving toward a side table and eyeing a medieval broadsword that had been brought in only that morning by a farmer who was digging a new well. A lot of discoveries were made like that. Istvan was itching to stop by for a look of his own. He had the farmer's invitation and full permission. All he had to do was find some time later in the week.

He could probably clear Friday morning, he decided as he came around his desk and deftly stepped between his brother and the sword.

Janos, older by a year, adjusted his impeccable tuxedo and fixed him with a look as he opened his mouth to speak.

Here it comes. The speech on how Istvan should pay as much attention to living things as inanimate objects. He heard that enough from his family to be able to recite it by heart. He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, the only one of the royal brothers who would ever dress so low. He caught plenty of hell for it, too, the tabloids regularly mocking him as the worst-dressed of the princes. As if he didn't have bigger things to worry about.

"What are you going to do about her?" Janos asked, skipping the lecture, which was unlike him. He probably had the latest trouble in the financial markets on his mind.

"I'm not sending for her today." He'd decided that as soon as he had arrived that morning and was alerted to her presence at the palace. He was hoping to get out to the old palace wall before lunch to check on a small excavation there, one among two dozen projects he had going on simultaneously. "Maybe tomorrow. Or the day after."

His time was in even shorter supply than usual. The last of the summer sunshine poured in the oversize windows, reminding him that whatever excavations he wanted to finish this year, he better get on it. Soon the fall rains would slow all open-air...